


A Subtle Shifting of Irrefutable Truths

by Rori_Teagan



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Consensual Slavery, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 08:34:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1738124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rori_Teagan/pseuds/Rori_Teagan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock buys John for companionship. John teaches him how to love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Subtle Shifting of Irrefutable Truths

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read as a standalone or you can get more at : amazon.com/author/simone

There’s a place in this world for true love. Mummy and Father had taught him that much. The love for your kin, your family, those parts of you connected by blood and bone and history. The ancestors that have gone before that you carry with you from conception to grave and pass on if you’re lucky to the next generation. It’s in the shape of your nose and the strength of your name and you carry it proudly. That’s what Mummy and Father have taught him and Mycroft both. That’s the way he loves his brother and his parents and his legacy. It’s cold and it’s clinical, weighted in probabilities and outcomes.  It’s survival based. Initiated and perpetuated by a selfish desire to see your genes, your life, your _self_ continue.

Mummy and Father loved one another for the strengths they brought to the union, Mummy brains and beauty, Father a long history of powerful men in high places whether through ambition or good sense. They were a team, a powerhouse, and it was unspoken that should either renege then the other would be within their rights to breach the terms set forth. Which was exactly what Mummy did a mere month after Father lost all mobility from the waist down plus half of his wealth and property when investors pulled out from his businesses. She remarried six months later. What was an Alpha without stamina and stature?  A liability.

Love is something that is by turns protective and ruining. It’s harsher than the average layman would like to admit. And it’s nothing at all that Sherlock wants.

\---

John Watson is nothing like Sherlock has been taught an Omega should be. Sherlock owns him , the title to his life kept securely locked away in the family safe has Sherlock’s name printed on it in dark black ink, John’s own signature four confident lines dashed abruptly beside it. He hadn’t hesitated, not even a moment. If Sherlock were not so good at reading intention behind actions he would have thought it false bravado, instead there’s only surety there. ‘I mean this,’ in each line, ‘I want this.’

 John does not act as if Sherlock owns him. He is surly in parts, critical, indignant. Afghanistan has left him at times mercurial in mood, sleeping for days or else not sleeping at all, giving Sherlock’s own perilous schedules a run for their money. A week after they’d met him, John had insulted the title and theory and content of the book Sherlock has spent the better part of his adult life penning. And when John was alerted to the author, he did not grovel or apologize or simper…he told Sherlock to prove himself. And when he had there was no false modesty, no embarrassment, no petty anger. Only awe. Brilliant, he said. Amazing, magnificent, you are a wonder. And each time since, just as sincere.

John nags. He fusses. Eat more, eat slower, ‘must you insist on creating such a poisonous atmosphere with your tobacco smoke?’

He doesn’t ask for protection though Sherlock has documentation to bind him to providing it. Instead he demands consideration and in exchange offers it back. He receives a pension from his time in the military and uses it to pay half of the flat expenses. Sherlock has no family money to fall back on and although their contract states he will be the financial support for them both and all subsequent offspring, John does not insist on it. When Sherlock can and remembers he does, when he doesn’t John keeps them in light and comfort, food and frivolities.

There will be no children for them, John is almost on the other side of his prime and Sherlock has no interest. Mycroft can carry on the family name if he so desires, Sherlock would just as soon be done with it.

John smiles and says ‘what we have is enough,’ when Sherlock alludes to more. Little feet pattering down the hall, John’s eyes reflected back up at him in an extension of himself that will live on even as he passes. The surety of yourself marching forward in time in little pieces of you, the shape of your nose, the strength of your name; the only reason two souls bind their lives together and John says ‘no, what we have is enough.’

They aren’t married. They can’t. Only Alphas and Betas marry. In some parts of the continent there are civil unions as if the very idea of an Alpha and Omega joining their life together is such a distasteful thing that even proponents must accede to a  change in moniker in order to palate it. Sherlock wouldn’t marry him even if he could, marriage is an agreement built on love, Sherlock _owns_ John. His loyalty, his affections, his time, his life. John had insisted on the only termination clause (outside of the standard abuse) being Sherlock’s. He can terminate at any time for any reason. John cannot. Sherlock owns him and John cannot be freed unless Sherlock chooses to release him.

They meet through a mutual acquaintance, an Alpha by the name of Mike Stamford. Prior to their meeting Sherlock would not have recalled the other man’s name. He only remembers the important things after all.

John intrigued him. This Omega that had gone through war, carried himself like an Alpha, but let his scent float free for all who cared to breathe in, no shame, no deception.

Sherlock deduces, the time in war, the failure older brother, his family’s disappointment in his Omega status, how they disowned him when he refused to sell himself to a family friend when debtors threatened to take the family home. John’s face broadens in a smile, ‘you’re a marvel. That’s excellent.’ Though he doesn’t entirely believe that Sherlock hasn’t researched him somehow, or gotten clues from Stamford prior to their meeting.

They keep meeting for a month, two, John assists on a terrible case that’s more confusion than intrigue and in the end is disgustingly predictable. Love.

“Assurance in future assets,” Sherlock says later that night when the cabbie is subdued and taken into custody.

“Are you saying you think he did all that, traveled all that way, harbored all that anger and resentment because he was pissed off he wouldn’t be getting any children out of her?”

“That and injured pride. An Alpha will go to almost any lengths for a wounded ego.”

John blinks at him disbelievingly, so Sherlock hastens on, “I’ve seen it before, love: the great balancing of profits and loss. When the latter outweighs the former, then it’s on to a new merger. You’ve seen it yourself, John, how many relationships have you had that have ended with ‘falling out of love.’ By which you more accurately mean ‘this union has ceased to be profitable.’”

“That’s not—that’s not love, Sherlock. It’s not about checks and balances or - or sharing attributes. I mean, it is about that too, but not just that. It’s about wanting to be with someone, admiring them, thinking they’re an amazing, beautiful person. Wanting to tell them things about yourself you wouldn’t tell anyone else. Trusting them. Feeling so strongly for them that you’d sooner die than see them leave this world, hurting when they’re hurting and knowing they feel your pain too. That’s love. It’s being weak and knowing the other person will be strong for you and when it’s their turn you’ll do the same for them.”

Sherlock scoffs, “a beautiful dream, my dear Watson, but I’m afraid it’s just that: a dream.”

John nods and drinks from his glass – whiskey perhaps, brown and clear and strong. He says no more about it. 

John goes away four months after they first meet. At first Sherlock pretends he doesn’t miss him. He’s just as efficient as ever, perhaps more so, he works tirelessly with Scotland Yard, solves cases in half the time – does what he promises himself he’d never do, guesses and estimates in lieu of cold facts because he just can’t be bothered with following through. He’s empty inside, hollow. Lonely.

When John returns he presents him with a contract for companionship. “I’m in need of an Omega,” he says, projecting a firmer stance and confidence than he feels. “You have no owner. Name your price.”

John slowly lowers himself to sit beside him. There’s a ‘I’m not for sale’ twitching on his brow and Sherlock feels a crushing disappointment thrashing at him before John opens his mouth.

But then he does and he’s wrong, never been so happy to be proven wrong in his life, and John names four things Sherlock can well afford. They sign right there on that couch. The next morning they sign a second time with a witness.

The first time Sherlock takes him to bed he makes sure John knows this is not part of their contract.

John smiles at him teasingly, “what are you talking about? Of course it is. I said exclusive rights, did I not?”

Sherlock nods and groans despite himself when John’s clever fingers twist at his nipples. “But you’re not oblig –“

John cuts him off with an even more clever tongue. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do,” he pants into Sherlock’s open mouth when they break away. “You hear me? Nothing.”

Despite himself, despite what he’s learned and has known to be true…Sherlock believes him. And he wonders to himself, is John right about everything then? Even...love?

For the first time it seems like a distinct possibility. It hurts a little, in a satisfying way, having all of his life's most irrefutable truths shift within him in one kiss.


End file.
